Monthly Archives: April 2012

You’ve probably noticed it’s been pretty quiet around Far Beyond Neverland this past week. Well, that’s because my school let out for spring break. Late in the semester to happen, I know, but blame my school being stupid. Anyway, yeah, spring break happened, and I said “fuck everything *lazeabout*”. So, no writing prompt or PreCrisis chapter last week. I didn’t even do any homework last week. I have a paper due next week for one English class, a final to do for another class, and a ten page paper for my psychology class that’s due in about three weeks. So, I’ll be a little busy a while. Possibly too busy to work on PreCrisis until after finals, which should be after the first week of May. So, just a bit of a heads up. It’s going to be fairly quiet for a little bit longer, even if I do have loads to say. Just don’t have the time right now.

As I’ve mentioned in one of those Tagged posts, I’m a fan of JRPGs. My journey into the world of Shin Megami Tensei games began with Persona 3 a few years ago. It was really good, in my opinion. You’re a new student at Gekkoukan High School in the fictional Japanese city of Tatsumi Port Island, and things called Shadows are trying to end the world through a disease called Apathy Syndrome (just like it sounds, it causes severe apathy in the afflicted), and the only ones who can save everything is you and your friends. It’s School Sim meets Dungeon Crawler, with gameplay divided between the normal world and an otherworldly dungeon.

Persona 4 is similar in style, but is set in a rural town instead of the big city. As the main character, your family has left you in the care of your uncle and cousin for a year in Inaba. You start your new school, make new friends, and solve the local serial murder/kidnapping mystery. Shadows still want to end you, but for different reasons this time around. (Why do the gods always want to kill off mankind in Japanese RPGS?)

Anyway, P3 had a few extra things, like P3: FES (a playable epilogue following the events of the main game), P3 Portable (Persona 3 on the PSP, and you can play the regular game or the game as a female protagonist), and a manga series. P4 got a manga and an anime adaptation.

And, can I take a moment to gush over the anime? I mean, for a visual-novel/action game, Atlus did a very good job. The nameless MC is christened Yu Narukami for the anime (he was Souji Seta in the manga) and the art is superb. Despite having played the game, and seen all three possible endings, I went in to the anime like I’ve gone into any other anime I’ve seen: pumped. The fact that I’m a fan of the Persona games already probably helps, too. ^_^

As I’ve said, I played the game, and know when what happens and where and with who. However, knowing the plot beforehand did not detract from my enjoyment of the anime. It was actually really fun seeing how they set up events like all the social links (what you need in order to get increasingly powerful summon-monsters in the game), and the fanservice was hilarious at times. Especially the school trip when the main cast all go out to Club Escapade and play King’s Game. That had me dying. XD

But, knowing when what plot events happen made me a bit emotional tonight, when I watched episodes 21, 22, and 23. It was (for those familiar with the game) Nanako’s dungeon, the Kunino-Sagiri fight (which was really well done and very dramatic, loved it!), and the…aftermath of Nanako’s dungeon. If you know the game, you know what I’m talking about, and I don’t want to spoil it for those that don’t. Needless to say, the end of episode 21 had me tearing up, 22 and 23 had me in tears. You’d think knowing the game would prepare you for what you know is coming, but that tugged the heartstrings man. Played them like a fiddle, it was wonderful. I’m two episodes away from being done with the Persona 4 anime, and can’t wait till I can get to them. Hope you check out the anime yourselves, I recommend it. I equally recommend playing the Persona games. Maybe you’ll love them as much as I do.

She woke to a silent world. Lying in bed, Alexia stared up sleepily at a shadow-covered ceiling, the only light present shining through a window. The alternating blue and green colors reflected the shadows of raindrops as they pelted the city. Lexi dozed on and off for a little while longer before eventually rolling over and planting her feet on the threadbare carpet. It was a muddy brown color, and made Lexi think of shit. It was laughable at times, a shit-colored carpet in a shithole of an apartment. That was life these days, endless shit.

Dressing quickly, she headed outside to find something to do. Sitting inside during the rain was boring, and only made her want to sleep. And, a person could only do so much sleep before they just rolled over and died. It took Lexi less than a second to realize what was wrong with the scene she stared at. The sky was blanketed by dark clouds, dropping buckets of rain down on the street. The drops were heavy, and Lexi was soon drenched in water. That was nothing that never happened before, though, she could deal.

The problem, however, was an obvious lack of people out and about. There were those who gave as big a fuck about water as Lexi did, and went outside anyway, but there wasn’t anyone anywhere. Unnerved, she set off down the street, intent on finding the reason behind it. As huge as the city was, SOMEONE had to be around. Yet, no matter where she went, there was nothing. There was no one. Even the nightclubs were silent, and that never happened. For hours, Lexi wandered the city, fear rising with every passing minute.

Passing under a dark archway to cut down an alley, she found herself in the middle of a deserted sunlit street. Turning around, the street stretched off behind her, with no sign of the alley. Facing back to the front, Lexi walked down the road, just as empty as it had been before. The noise of the rain had been replaced, however, with that of children playing. She couldn’t see them, but she could hear them, and the sight of a familiar building told her where she was.

The apartment building was a small construction of brown stone, the stones darkened by age. Standing at the steps that led up to the front door, Lexi placed a hand on the iron banister, walking slowly up to the building. Inside was a dim hallway, lined with doors on either side. In the center of the hall’s ceiling was an opening, where one could look through to other floors. At the very rear of the building stood a staircase, where Lexi ascended to find a firefight. The sunlight was gone, replaced with darkness, spotlights the only thing lighting the hallway. A shout from the opposite end of the hallway drew her attention too late, and a bullet sent her careening back down the staircase. Time seemed to slow down as she fell, until she landed with a heavy thump on the brown carpet of her apartment.

“It’s one o’ clock in the city, and things are looking gorgeous out there, aren’t they?”

Blinking bleary-eyed, Lexi focused on the blaring television with a small degree of difficulty, sleep still clinging to her brain. Rising to her feet, she looked down at her chest, feeling around for the bullet hole she was pretty damn certain had been there a minute ago. Finally, she took a breath, calming down as she sunk back down onto the bed.

“A dream?” she muttered, yawning. “Fucking real for a dream.”

With another yawn, Lexi fell backwards, cuddling up to her pillow. More sleep was in order before she had to report in for work, but a ringing phone saw fit to disturb her attempts.

“’Lo?” she said, not even bothering to see who it was calling. There weren’t a great deal of people on that list of potentially-on-the-other-end. There was her friend Dragonfly, her sister Nicole, and…

“Heeey, Lexi, you’re up finally!”

Lexi heaved a silent sigh. “Snipe, how’ve you been? Haven’t heard from you in fucking forever.”

“Oh, you know, same old same old. Had some stuff to handle for the boss, went off-planet a while.”

“Oh? Where’d you go this time?”

“Eh, just Silica, like usual. Anyway, I’m back in town a while. Wanna hang sometime today?”

Lexi rolled her eyes. Sniper wasn’t a bad guy exactly, but he was often around some really unsavory types. He was a runner for some gang or other – there were a bunch – and it wasn’t something Lexi wanted to get associated with. But, Snipe had a good heart, so she humored the guy sometimes.

The mention of the Anniversary quieted the male on the other end of the phone. Neither of them said anything for several moments, before Sniper broke the silence.

“Oh. Right. Yeah, I remember,” Sniper sighed. “How could I ever forget? I guess if we don’t do anything else today, I might see you there.”

Lexi managed a half-smile. “Yeah. Maybe.”

The line clicked, the dull drone of the dial tone humming in her ear. Slowly, she let her arm fall from her head, the phone coming to rest in her lap. With the push of a button, it was off, and she left it there on the bed while she went to get dressed. A black and white striped long-sleeved shirt, black pants with a black and white checkered design on the bottom of one leg, and black and white sneakers served as the day’s outfit, completed by a black short sleeved jacket. Outside, she stared up at the sky. The occasional cloud dotted the pale blue, and she shook her head as she trudged off down the street. Today was not a day for such a happy sky.

~You must post the rules
~Post eleven facts about yourself on the blog post
~Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged.
~Tag eleven bloggers, however, you can break the rules and tag fewer people if you want. Make sure you hyperlink their names/blogs.
~Let them know you’ve tagged them!
~Have fun!

Yep. Always write it down lest you forget it. There was some epic dialogue I thought of once in the shower, and I never wrote it down when I got out. Cue me trying to remember how it went. What I came up with later is nowhere near as awesome as the original incarnation.

8) Of the last, say, ten books you read, which did you like best and why?

The first Wheel of Time book was pretty good. Nice set up and whatnot.

9) Around how many books are on your to-read list right now?

Ergh. Um. A lot. Seriously, loads.

10) What is your favourite book-to-film adaptation?

The Harry Potter movies.

11)How often do you listen to music while writing?

All the time. I never leave home without a portable music player. And headphones, one must never forgot headphones.

It’s April, and we all know what that means! Unless you don’t, in fact, know what April means. No, I’m not talking about the Mayflower, I’m talking about the Frenzy. The Script Frenzy, to be precise. Midnight April 1st is when this hip little shindig kicked off, and yours truly is working on two scripts at once. This might end up being three, I don’t know yet. Anyway, my page count so far is 14/100, but I intend on trying for a hundred pages for each script. So, that 100 pages could end up being anywhere between 200 and 300 by the end of April. I hope. *fingers crossed*

I other news, Cartoon Network played the best April Fool’s Joke in the history of everything. They showed some Saturday night Toonami, and played classic anime from back when. It was the most amazing night, my inner child jumped for joy. It makes me want to hope that (maybe) Cartoon Network will start getting itself back together and bring Toonami back for real, but time will tell.